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Ahead of the November 30 launch of WoW Classic: Season of Discovery, I had a chance to speak to a few developers about what we can expect. As someone who has been enchanted by WoW Classic Hardcore over the past month or so, the notion that I can play Classic-era content in a completely different way is quite exciting. We spoke to Nora Valletta (Lead Software Engineer) and Clay Stone (Associate Production Director) about World of Warcraft Classic. We had a chance to discuss several features, from potential balance to scrapped content coming back, and much more.
There’s so much to love about Season of Discovery in WoW Classic. It’s all anyone I know who plays the game has been talking about with me lately. It’s clear to me that the developers of this game mode are just as excited as we are to get started. There are sure to be plenty of secrets - though I did try to pry them out of the lips of the developers.
Nora Valletta and Clay Stone of WoW Classic: Season of Discovery talk about the massive new game mode
Q. One of the hardest things when trying something new is balance. Are these new specs designed to be viable in dungeons and/or raids on the Season of Discovery servers?
Nora Valletta: So, especially with the new roles that we've added, such as Mage Healer and our new tank roles for classes that previously could not tank, we do intend to have them be capable enough to take on those main roles.
That being said, balance is a difficult thing just in general, and we've kind of taken the approach in Season of Discovery to make sure we are balancing for fun above all else. We want to make sure that we're not spending too much time trying to just kind of like fine-tune everything at the cost of focusing on delivering phenomenal content to our players.
Clay Stone: Yeah, I don't have too much to add to that. No, I thought Nora hit the nail on the head. It's gonna also be interesting to see the way that players build their classes out and use all these different tools in their toolkits to approach different situations. I do expect some classes to be more viable than others, and let's say dungeons versus the raids.
But we're excited to see how players approach each of those and how they designate different classes to approach each instance.
Nora Valletta: We will, of course, be keeping an eye on things, a very close eye on things, and making sure that if there are any outliers, like something that’s way overpowered compared to everything else, we’ll be making adjustments where we see fit.
Q. I love the idea of the Runes and discovering secrets across this update, but how exactly is that going to work? Will this require players to work together to solve riddles or find secret locations to unlock the knowledge of the Runes?
Clay Stone: Yeah, that's a tough one because you're right. We definitely want to preserve that sense of mystery and wonder. Gosh, it's tough, and Nora may have a better idea of how to express this than I do. But I would say that the Runes and the discoveries may take a lot more effort than players initially think if they assume that everything is gonna be found in a box that's hidden in a cave somewhere.
They take a lot more collaboration with other players. It could take some cleverness to figure out how to do them. But we also expect that, you know, a social component is a massive part of world of Warcraft and especially World of Warcraft classic. And so we hope that players will also work together, and it's not just gonna be left up to the individual to suss all of these out themselves.
Nora Valletta: Absolutely. I think Clayton said it beautifully, and, you know, we're being purposefully cryptic about the actual room discoveries. Just because we do want to preserve that sense of wonder and awe as players kind of stumble upon them for the very first time in the game. That being said, it's not gonna be as straightforward or simple as, say, just a new quest line, for instance. There's definitely going to be stuff there that players are gonna have to employ.
They're gonna have to pay attention to the world of Azeroth around them. They're gonna have to use their eyes; they're gonna have to use their senses, listen, they're gonna have to, you know, really tune into the World of Warcraft and hopefully, you know, kind of employ some critical thinking skills and, and tie some ends together. Like Clay said, rely on their friends, their buddies, and make new friends in order to sort of problem-solve and figure things out.
Q. One of the changes I’m pretty excited about is the faction balancing on PVP servers. This is something retail sorely needed during the days of PVP servers - Darkspear and Bloodscalp being just two examples. Was this something that was ever intended for the retail servers in those days, or were there factors limiting that kind of technology at the time?
Nora Valletta: So there are a few reasons, but I think one of our Blue Posts kind of touched on this fact. When we talked about fact faction balance, there are technically pros and cons to enforcing faction balance on a server, right? So one of the potential cons is that, like, if faction balance enforcement is triggered, then, you know, players who are late to the game might not be able to play with their friends who are playing on the Horde, for instance, if the hoard is locked on that server.
So there may be difficult situations like that. But at the same time, to answer why faction balance is really good. It's, you know, it's one of those things that, especially with Season of Discovery, having that open-world PVP event in Ashenvale and also future planned open-world content in later level brackets. We do think that now is a good time, especially given that our Season of Discovery is that kind of experimental grounds where we're really trying out all these really fun and exciting ideas.
It's kind of like, well, if we're taking a really experimental approach to the season, then it stands to reason that if this is something we're interested in and if this is something that players have been asking for for a very long time, we should do our very best to give it to them and see, you know how it goes, we'll, of course, be monitoring the situation very closely.
How often, if at all, does it happen that players end up in an awkward situation where they wanted to play with their friends on a specific server but ended up having to play on a different server or, you know, some situations like that? And we plan on monitoring and adjusting our faction balance and enforcement safeguards accordingly. So we do feel fairly confident in, you know, our ability to kind of pivot on that if we need to. But yeah, now is a great time. We're experimenting with things in our season.
Clay Stone: Something that Nora hinted at there was the player's desire for this. And that's certainly something that we've been listening to. And we've heard for a long time that players want a faction-balanced PVP realm. And I think that's really because of that additional element that's brought to the game when that's the case, where you do have to be aware of your surroundings because you may be walking into an opposite faction territory where there's a lot more of them present and you have the PVP flag for it constantly turned on. It adds an element there that's not ever present in a PVE realm, and some players really enjoy that.
Now, that being said, we do wanna put a caution out there for players who have never experienced a faction-balanced PVP realm. Let's say they're playing on a PVP realm that is dominated by one side or the other and it already exists. They may not have experienced some of the challenges or the hindrances that they might come across. I think we put in the Blue Post, something like your favorite farming or gathering spots might not be quite as safe. It might be a little spicier than you think.
Another example would be on raid nights when you're trying to get to a particular raid that happens to be very close or within an opposite faction territory or a contested area. You might not make it on time. That could be a challenge that you may not have experienced before or come across. Now, that being said, all of that existing, we're excited for players who are up to take on that challenge. Certainly, we want to try it ourselves. Some of the team members haven't spent that much time on a faction-balanced PVP realm. I wanna see what it's all about.
This only applies to PVP realms. So, PVE realms will not have enforced faction balance on them. Players can jump on, and regardless of what the faction balance is on that realm, they can roll either faction with no restrictions. So certainly something to call out and something that we're very excited to see and we're feeling confident in.
Now, also, as Nora said, if it turns out we were all wrong, if it turns out our dev team and the players have all been wrong this whole time, and no one actually wants faction balance PVP realms. And as Nora mentioned, we can change course if we need to.
Q: Is the team planning on revisiting any old scrapped content from vanilla for new content in Season of Discovery? Could Azshara's scrapped battleground find new life as an end-game PvP/PvE area akin to old Alterac Valley or the Crypts of Karazhan explored before Legion's investigations into the tower and its mysteries?
Nora Valletta: I think that there is a very high chance players will encounter something like that. Perhaps, you know, players will benefit from revisiting potentially unfinished quest lines. You know, there is going to be additional PVE and PVP end-game content in the future brackets as well. So, we are not stopping at Blackfathom Deeps as a raid, and we are not stopping at the Ashenvale zone-wide PVP event. So, to answer the question of ‘can players look forward to interesting, more fleshed-out areas that maybe they haven't had the chance to explore yet as part of WoW Classic?’ I would say the answer to that is yes.
Clay Stone: Yeah, I think it’s certainly - there is an ambition on the Classic Team to really push ourselves and push what we've been able to deliver to players so far. And again, following the community discussion and listening to our players, we've identified there is a very strong desire for that new content, particularly in the unfinished or what’s been only limited or presented limitedly in the past. So it's something that, from an ambition standpoint, certainly something that we would like to pursue, but no announcements to make on that front today.
Nora Valletta: The team always says the World is the main character, right? And truly, Azeroth is an incredible place. WoW Classic takes place in Azeroth's history and is an incredibly beautiful thing. And yeah, we're looking forward to ways we can surprise and delight our players in the coming, uh you know, months and years.
Q: With the endgame shifting from level 25 to 40, then 50, then 60, should we expect each phase of the "endgame" dungeon or raiding experience to lead into each other story-wise? Will the cultists and elementals we defeat in BFD/Azshara lead us to other places, such as Shadowfang Keep, Uldaman, or other locations?
Nora Valletta: We're definitely committed to making sure we are true to the lore and I guess I should say the background of all of the locations, characters, everything we utilize here to bring forth these new Classic experiences to players.
And so if you look at, for example, our Blackfathom Deeps raid, we're very much leaning into what's going on in Blackfathom Deeps at that time. Like, ‘Oh no, there's cultists in there, they're messing with some really dangerous dark energies that may have corrupted some of the creatures in there.’
You know, these things aren't happening necessarily in a vacuum, which is what it sounded like you were kind of asking about, especially with the Azshara example. So we wanna make sure that as we're adding these new experiences, these new, the end game content, it makes sense and is kind of tied into the world around it such that it just feels like it just clicks in a place like it was meant to be there all along.
Clay Stone: Yeah, there's something to that about embellishing what already exists or playing more into it without, you know, fundamentally making any widespread changes. But Nora answered that really well.
Q. I’m a pretty big fan of the idea of taking some of these long, classic dungeons and transforming them into raids. Has the team already figured out what dungeons will be converted in future updates?
Nora Valletta: There’s a lot of forward-thinking on our team. So, we do have a plan in place. Folks will find out what will be coming for them in the level 40 bracket fairly soon. We’re very excited for that to be announced as well, to hear the player’s thoughts on Blackfathom Deeps once it is released, and to hear the player’s thoughts once we announce what the next PVE and PVP end-game will be in the next bracket.
Clay Stone: As we’re thinking about this, there are some constraints in place when we think about some of these dungeons and their viability as a 10-player raid. They may be long, but they also have to have the physical space, so it doesn’t feel like putting 10 players in there is too crammed or can we create additional boss encounters?
Are there rooms to put those boss encounters in? So there are some considerations there, but those constraints certainly breed creativity and fun solutions that the team has to come up with to create situations that players won’t expect.
Nora Valletta: And when I say we have plans, I want to be clear, too, that our team is very good at listening to player feedback and pivoting wherever needed. So, whenever I say “plans”, it’s one of those things where we’re constantly listening and trying to figure out what makes the most sense, what is the most fun, and what’s going to be the most impactful thing that we can deliver to our players - we’re gonna go for that.
Q. New playstyles for classes like Mage, Warlock, Shaman, Rogue: From the outset, there will be a solid number of Runes for a limited number of spots on your gear. Do you think this will force players to build and adhere to one specific playstyle, or do players have a wide variety of new ways to play each class?
Clay Stone: Without revealing too much, there is a hypothetical scenario where additional Rune slots could be added to more gear. In that scenario, the team is certainly up for the challenge of balancing everything together. That does add additional complexity and, as you mentioned, will allow players to change how they play their classes. Maybe not as substantially as completely changing their role as for others. There is an intention there to allow for greater customization of one’s toolkit as time goes on.
Nora Valletta: We think there’s a lot of potential in that customization that Clay mentioned in Season of Discovery. We actually started off with a lot more Runes than we originally planned. We had to cut back because of the sheer complexity of it. Players might not even like that there’s so much going on. We think we’ve hit a happy place where there’s plenty of potential for really fun experimentation, and like Clay alluded to, there’s definitely the potential for more interesting class-changing combinations of Runes later down the line.
Q. So I’m in a small Discord group, separate from all my other channels, where it’s just me and one or two other journalists/content creators, and a few friends, just playing Hardcore and hanging out. It’s been a really refreshing, fun experience. Some of these people had never played hardcore up until that point or were still fairly new to WoW. Despite that, they were quite keen to jump into Hardcore headfirst instead of learning Retail. What sort of feedback have you received, and how does it feel to see how popular Hardcore is right now?
Nora Valletta: You know, there’s definitely a special magic about WoW Classic. Classic Era, in particular, is an incredibly fun game. And it’s an incredibly fun game to experience with other people. It encourages a lot of those social interactions. I think that’s gonna be true again in Season of Discovery, but as for Hardcore - witnessing players new and old arrive at Hardcore and have a blast has been a very exciting experience for the team.
I think part of that is due to Hardcore being a very high-stakes experience. When somebody tosses a heal your way, and you’re on the brink of death, that matters a lot to you! I’m whispering to you thank you! You just saved my life, you just saved hours of effort that I put into this character. I do think that aspect of Hardcore definitely has a draw for many people.
Clay Stone: I definitely agree with everything Nora said. I can’t speak for the entire team, but when we announced Hardcore, we knew that it was gonna be something exciting. We had been watching the community do unofficial challenges for a while. Even after announcing it, finalizing its development, and releasing it, we still did not expect the level of excitement and the number of new players that would come to WoW for the very first time just to check out Hardcore.
As Nora said, there’s something magical about that level 1-60 journey. We hope that with Season of Discovery, we’re even taking that to the next level. So perhaps some of those Hardcore players that have found their way to WoW because of Hardcore will want to check out Season of Discovery and everything we’ve brought to that space that they’re familiar with.
Q. Part of my job is keeping up with mechanical changes, datamining, and things of that nature. One thing I noticed recently that when it comes to tanks, a few of them saw a reduction in their overall threat (100% down to 50%) in certain abilities. I don’t know if you can confirm that was a real change, but if so, was it just too easy with so much threat generation?
Nora Valletta: I think that with datamined stuff in particular, especially as things are hitting the PTR and getting datamined, it tends to be because it’s a very malleable thing. I don’t really want to speculate on what each change may have been and why, based on the fact that a lot of things are still adjustable, up in the air, in the process of being fine-tuned ahead of launch. I’m not sure if Clay has more context he wants to add.
Clay Stone: It’s a great point because we’re still making subtle tweaks as we go along. We expect after launch that we’ll be making some more as well. As for the reason why, it’s gonna differ from case to case, but we’re just trying to produce something that everyone has fun with and gets to engage with. That’s really our goal: create an exciting experience for players.
Q. We got a peek at BFD during Blizzcon, courtesy of content creators like Esfand. I saw a few interesting differences, but as a whole, how different are you planning to make these dungeon remakes? Like, how surprising is it gonna be?
Nora Valletta: I wanna say, surprising isn't necessarily the word I’d go for, but I would say that the fights are definitely going to be a challenge. There will be mechanics that would greatly benefit players to notice, pay attention to, and learn the dance of the fight in order to better conquer each boss. There are unique, interesting, and fun new mechanics for players to discover in Blackfathom Deeps and in future PVE content we have planned later on down the road.
Clay Stone: Yeah, I don’t have a lot to add to that. That was answered really well. It should feel even though the area will feel familiar, and the lore will feel familiar, a lot of the experiences players are gonna have, we hope, will feel new and surprising.
Nora Valletta: There was a time leading up to Blizzcon we were trying to figure out how to facilitate the Blizzcon demo. We were discussing as a team, ‘How much about the boss fights players are gonna encounter in this demo should we reveal?’ Should we describe that doing certain things may make the fight a lot easier for them if you can coordinate and do these things.
Jason Parker: Naaah, don’t tell them anything!
Nora Valletta: Yeah, we just decided to err on the side of - players will figure it out, they’ll figure it out fast, I’m sure. But we want to give them that experience, that feeling of self-accomplishment, when you solve a puzzle and have that ‘Ah-ha!’ moment when you truly conquer those boss fights on your own.
WoW Classic: Season of Discovery begins on November 30, 2023. It will last for roughly a year and give players a variety of intense, new experiences. From new class/spec combinations to plenty of secrets, there’s so much to be excited about.
